Why do we read literature? Literature enables us to develop our judgment through observation and reflection. We read literature for the many pleasures it offers. These pleasures range widely across genres, with those reading fiction and drama differing from what readers experience in their encounters with poems and essays.
Reading Literature is a practical guide ranging across the literary genres—poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. For each of these genres, Robert DiYanni outlines six “ways in” to literary works. Each section closes with the technique of “interrupted reading”. 'Reading Literature' helps readers experience the rich rewards literature provides; understand the complexities of human psychology; navigate the intricacies of social relationships; take pleasure in the ways language creates alternate worlds which echo the world in which we live. It also includes sections on literary elements and the basics of literary theory. Part five uses the familiar literary elements as the basis for sample analyses of poem, story, play, essay, and epic. The final part offers an overview of a dozen paired critical approaches, or theoretical perspectives, on literature.
Helping readers read closely and critically, this is an essential guide to find “ways in” to reading literature to result in valuable encounters and rewarding literary experiences for general readers or those beginning literary studies courses.
Why do we read literature? Literature enables us to develop our judgment through observation and reflection. We read literature for the many pleasures it offers. These pleasures range widely across genres, with those reading fiction and drama differing from what readers experience in their encounters with poems and essays.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Print and Digital Reading
Part I: Reading Lyric Poetry5 Ways In
Prelude I: The Pleasures of Lyric Poetry
1. Speaker, Structure, SoundWilliam Butler Yeats: "An Irish Airman Foresees
His Death"
2. ArgumentAndrew Marvell: "To His Coy Mistress"
3. ToneStephen Crane: "War is Kind"
4. Literature and the ArtsPieter Brueghel the Elder, W. H. Auden, William
Carlos Williams, and Walt Whitman
5. Interrupted ReadingRobert Frost: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
Interlude I: Epic Poetry
Part II: Reading FictionFive Ways In
Prelude II: The Pleasures of Fiction
6. QuestionsKatherine Anne Porter: "Rope"
7. SurprisesEdgar Allan Poe: "The Cask of Amontillado"
8. VoicesJane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
9. Fiction, History, ArtErnest Hemingway: "The Revolutionist" and A Farewell
to Arms
10. Interrupted ReadingKate Chopin: "The Story of an Hour"
Interlude II: The Novel and Novella
Part III: Reading DramaFive Ways In
Prelude III: The Pleasures of Drama
11. Mental TheaterAugust Strindberg: The Stronger
12. SubtextWendy Wasserstein: Tender Offer
13. Language and StyleWilliam Shakespeare: Othello
14. Scene and Sound William Shakespeare: Macbeth
15. Interrupted ReadingGeorge Bernard Shaw: Arms and the Man
Interlude III: Types of Drama
Part IV: Reading the EssayFive Ways In
Prelude IV: The Pleasures of the Essay
16. AnnotationFrancis Bacon: "Of Youth and Age"
17. Style and ToneMary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
18. Slow ReadingLeslie Jamison: "A Street Full of Splendid Strangers"
19. Reading FrameworkJamaica Kincaid: "On Seeing England for the First
Time"
20. Interrupted ReadingGeorge Orwell: "A Hanging "
Interlude IV: The Video Essay
Part V: Reading with Literary ElementsFive Takes
Prelude V: The Value of Literary Elements
21. Elements of Lyric PoetryGerard Manley Hopkins: "Spring and Fall: to a
young child"
22. Elements of Epic PoetryJohn Milton: Paradise Lost
23. Elements of FictionJames Joyce: "Araby"
24. Elements of DramaIsabella Augusta Persse, Lady Gregory: The Rising of
the Moon
25. Elements of the EssayZora Neale Hurston: "How It Feels to Be Colored
Me"
Interlude V: Literary Conventions
Part VI: Reading Literature Through Critical LensesTwelve Takes
Prelude VI: The Value of Literary Perspectives
26. Formalist
27. Reader-Response
28. Biographical
29. Historical
30. Psychological
31. Sociological
32. Mythological
33. Structuralist
34. Deconstructionist
35. Postcolonial
36. Ecocritical
37. Influence and Values
Appendix: Writing about Literature
References
Index
Robert DiYanni is Professor of Humanities at New York University, USA where he serves on the faculties of the School of Professional Studies and the Stern School of Business, following a decade in the College of Arts and Science. His publications include The Pearson Guide to Critical and Creative Thinking (2014), Critical and Creative Thinking: A Brief Guide for Teachers (2015), and Critical Reading Across the Curriculum (with Anton Borst; 2017). His Literature (1986) went through six editions and his Modern American Poets (1988, 1993) was the companion text for the PBS television series Voices and Visions about modern American poetry. His co-authored Scribner Handbook for Writers went through four editions and his book Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay went through six.
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